For a guy who is supposed to be a political incompetent, he is brilliantly managing the two biggest issues of the campaign – Hillary’s “deplorables” and her illness. He is showing great political aplomb – much more skill than he is ever given credit for having.

On Tuesday in North Carolina, Mr. Trump shrewdly brought on stage dozens of his supporters of all races and backgrounds to tell a cheering crowd that they were not “deplorable.” It worked and he should do it everywhere, every time he speaks. It should become a standard start of his rallies.

On the other side, left wing media types are going all-in for Hillary and her evil assertion. You should have seen Alexandra Brandon (A.B.) Stoddard of RealClearPolitics on Fox News Monday night.

Brit Hume asked A.B. if she thought that Clinton had made a mistake. A.B. spent the next two minutes stuttering and stammering to say (in just the right way so as not look like a DC elitist) that Hillary was right, that some percentage of Trump’s supporters are bigots and that her only mistake was saying that it was “half” of his supporters.

Today, Chris Stierwalt of Fox News (the network mouthpiece of the #NeverTrump Republicans) actually said that Trump should not use this line of attack because at some point he would be asked “so, if not half then what percentage of your supporters are bigots?” Wow.

Mr. Trump is showing remarkable restraint on this issue. Instead of talking this issue non-stop everywhere with tweets and confrontational soundbites – which might have been his instinct six months ago – he is reserving this issue largely to rallies and fundraisers. This is best and shows restraint and will yield great success.

Hillary’s comment was not a failure of restraint or an off-the-cuff comment. It was read from a teleprompter and is going to be thematically part of her message to the end. It is a strategy that I feared she would use months ago – when it might have possibly worked, however wrong it was.

Trump is fairly bullet-proof. He is the leader of a movement which movement selected him as the leader – not the other way around. Unlike Hillary, his candidacy is not a cult of personality. His popularity is based in the fact that he effectively stands for our issues. Hillary’s supporters do not know what she stands for and, frankly, do not care. They will support her regardless – a cult of personality.

Because Mr. Trump is the leader and not the “owner” of the movement, he is immune from personal attacks causing his supporters to drop away. He is our leader, he is imperfect as we all are and we chose him to lead us – case closed. Say what you like – we don’t care.

The only chance that the left had to beat Trump politically was to attack the underlying movement directly and cause people to avoid being seen to participating in it. This was the basis of the #NeverTrump movement and it had been working for her indirectly and without this specific line of attack for months.

Recently however, things have changed: The #NeverTrumpers have started to come over; Prominent Ds like James Woolsey (Clinton’s CIA Director) have announced for Trump; and, African American and other non-traditional GOP coalition voters have been showing receptiveness for Mr. Trump and our movement. Additionally, Hillary has been sliding in the polls and there is no activity working now that will reverse that.

None of this can be permitted if she expects to win.

Their only hope is to tar the R, to cleave his support into differing parts and to increase the third party vote totals at Trump’s expense. So, they dusted-off this strategy and are now throwing a “Hail Mary” pass trying to divide the movement by outrageously labeling some portion of it as bigots etc – the Basket of Deplorables.

They waited too long and it will not work.

If in January (even before the Trump’s nomination), the left wing had (however incorrectly) painted the movement as bigots and crazies, it would have been crippling at the formative stages of our nominee’s campaign. Now, it is too late because the movement has solidly formed and will not fracture over identity politics.

Blacks supporting Trump are furious and are saying so out loud – as are gays, Latinos and so many others in the Trump coalition. They will not be scared off by the left wingers in the media or in the Clinton campaign.

The Ds know that Washington Rs are now and always have been afraid of identity politics and will jump under the table to hide from the issue every time. Hillary has miscalculated that all Rs will react this way – we won’t. In fact, used correctly as Mr. Trump has, the issue will be a winner for us.